In the early days of the internet, before the rise of advanced search algorithms, directory sites ruled the web. They provided long lists of websites categorized by industry, topic, and niche.

Instead of typing a search query you had to filter down by category until you found what you were looking for:

You could even purchase books which used the same approach:

Trying to categorize the entire scope of the internet nowadays is a fool’s errand. The ‘indexed web’ now contains at least 4.5 billion pages, making search an absolute necessity. The Yahoo! Directory closed down in December 2014 and DMOZ stopped operating in March of this year (2017).

But does this mean that ‘directories’ are an old paradigm, an outdated technology made extinct by machine-learning and AI?

Not at all, in fact, quite the reverse is true.

Although attempting to categorize the entire breadth and scope of the internet is simply impossible, curating and categorizing businesses and content is more relevant today than it ever has been.

Let’s take Google as an example:

Each search query you enter reveals thousands or millions of websites. Yet, the first page of results contains only 10 listings.

“..based on the mental tendencies to use categories and to exaggerate the differences between them. These tendencies are part of the natural human readiness to perceive the world in terms of discrete things.”

In short, a sea of information is disconcerting. Users want highly relevant, targeting information, without having to dig around for results.

Google is well aware of this natural human desire and often ranks ‘listicles’ above everything else.

Here is a case-in-point. A quick search for ‘coffee shops chicago’ reveals the following:

With the exception of the Google Map listings, not a single coffee shop business is listed on the first page of the results!!

It’s a list article with a brief description of two dozen coffee shops with a full-screen map detailing their locations:

Furthermore, the article belongs to the local version of ‘Eater.com’, a portal, directory and blog that showcases hundreds of food outlets in the Chicago area.

Now, it’s important to notice something very interesting here:

The twenty-four coffee shops that appear in this article (ranked at #1 in the SERPs) do not appear on the first page themselves.

But they are benefiting from the traffic that comes with a high-ranking because of this blog post.

This gives the directory business huge leverage over the individual coffee shops, creating a business opportunity that everyone can benefit from:

The Directory business can charge a fee for advertisements and promoted businesses

The small businesses benefit from increased traffic and exposure

The end-user benefits from a highly curated directory not available from Google by default

Now, of course, Chicago is a huge city, with stiff competition. Let’s zoom in a little further and see what happens:

Out of the five listed above for ‘coffee shop lagrange park’ only two are directory sites (auto-generated by Yelp). Comparing this to the first result we can see that the more you niche down, the less directory/listicles sites will appear in the search results.

As an entrepreneur who wants to make money with WordPress, you can benefit from this huge opportunity.

It’s simple enough to create a basic ‘best of’ directory, similar to the one above. No advanced coding skills are required and everything can be accomplished with the Divi Builder and a little CSS.

Divi ships with over 40 modules, one of which is the ‘Maps Module’ which uses the Google Maps API.

What is an API Key?

An API (application programming interface) is a list of commands that one program can send to another. It helps two programs communicate with directly and use their functions. In this case Divi is communicating with Google to display a custom map.

In order to use Google Maps (with Divi or any other theme), you have to create an API Key. This is required so that Google can track and control how the API is used (and prevent malicious use of its software).

Setting up a Google Maps API key is very easy. All you need is a standard Google account.

If you would like to try creating a simple one-page directory, check out the two tutorial videos below:

Part One:

Part Two:

Directory sites and listicles are essential to the internet. They group together content and make it easier to find what you are looking for’. Moreover, in popular niches, Directory Sites are often ranked higher than the individual businesses they represent. This creates a lucrative business opportunity for anyone who can create a simple directory!

]]>How To Make Money Customizing WooCommercehttps://1wd.tv/make-money-customizing-woocommerce/
Wed, 15 Mar 2017 11:53:33 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=3483Learn how to test which layouts for the WooCommerce single product pages produce the highest sales.

E001 - Sean Barton - Woo Layout Injector

Ecommerce is huge and growing bigger every year. From huge stores like Amazon and WalMart to small startups, more and more people are setting up shop online.

In fact, online sales reached almost $2 trillion dollars in 2016, a whopping 23.7% growth from the previous year. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon. Emarketer.com predicts sales will double to over $4 trillion by 2020.

With all this growth dozens of store owners are setting up shop every week. Many of which are using the free WordPress plugin ‘WooCommerce’ to power their online stores.

With over 21 million downloads, WooCommerce now powers over 28% of all online stores, making it the most popular e-commerce platform on the web.

This has created huge opportunities for freelance designers, developers, and WordPress experts.

Despite the clean design that ships by default with the plugin, the simple truth is that any e-commerce store requires extensive testing in order to optimize sales and conversions.

Many stores, however, fail to test even the most basic of elements and miss out on thousands of dollars of lost revenue.

And WooCommerce doesn’t make it particularly easy.

In order to tweak the layout and design of many of the built-in pages, you need a pretty extensive set of coding skills to modify even the basic configuration.

Luckily, though, with the power of Divi’s drag-and-drop builder and a nifty little plugin you too can make money creating custom WooCommerce layouts for your clients, no coding required.

Imagine how happy your customers will be if you can double, triple or even quadruple their online sales. Not only will you seem like an optimization wizard but you’ll be able to command a healthy sum for your efforts.

In this article, you will learn how to test which layouts for the WooCommerce single product pages and shop pages produce the highest sales.

There is nothing you can do ‘out of the box’ with Divi & WooCommerce to make the product pages look like anything other than what you get by default.

You are stuck with the basic layout:

If you want to change the design and say, move the ‘Add to Cart’ button below the product title, use a three-column layout or move the product image to the right hand side you are forced to open up the code editor.

WooCommerce has dozens of ‘hooks’ that can be used to get the job done but the process is time-consuming and tedious.

What is an Action Hook?

In WooCommerce various functions are ‘hooked’ onto specific locations in the template files. In order to add, remove or change the position of the various WooCommerce elements (add to cart, related products, star rating etc.) one would need to add additional ‘actions’ onto those hooks.

Without a decent understanding of PHP and a familiarity with WordPress development, it’s probably not even worth attempting.

For the rest of us, it’s much easier to use a plugin. While there are several available most of them have been built for Visual Composer.

Luckily, though, Sean Barton has created a very helpful plugin called the ‘Woo Layout Injector’ specifically for the Divi Page Builder.

Sean Barton

Sean Barton is a freelance PHP website Developer based in Crewe, Cheshire. He is one of the most prolific plugin developers in the Divi Community. More details about his work and services can be found on his website Tortoise IT. All of his plugins can be purchased via Elegant Marketplace.

What is the Woo Layout Injector?

Upon activating the plugin a whole range of new modules become available.

Each module represents one of the WooCommerce elements and can be positioned in any way you like using the Divi Page Builder interface we all know and love:

Furthermore, each of the ‘ET Woo’ modules can be further customized with extensive options within the module settings.

For example, the ‘ET Woo Product Image’ module allows you to adjust the image size, toggle on or off the thumbnails, adjust the thumbnail columns and even link the images to the product pages.

Additionally, in the ‘Advanced Design Settings’ there are further options for settings such as background color, borders and the ability to set a custom margin.

For more granular control you can even set a custom CSS class or ID and tweak to your heart’s content.

This unrivaled level of control over the WooCommerce layout makes this plugin the perfect option for any freelancer.

In just a few minutes you’ll be able to optimize your client’s storefront and maximize their conversion rates like a true professional.

What Modules Are Available With the Woo Layout Injector?

The plugin ships with no less than eighteen custom WooCommerce modules:

How Does The Woo Layout Injector Work?

The plugin gives you the ability to customize both the single product pages and the archive pages (shop page, category pages and tag pages).

This is achieved by creating custom layouts within the Divi Library which are then linked to the appropriate WooCommerce template file via the plugin settings.

What is the Divi Library?

The Divi Library lets you store your favorite layouts, sections, rows or modules for later use. Whenever you save an item to your Divi Library, you can access it easily from within the modal window when adding a new layout, module, section or row to the page.

For the single product pages it works like this:

All of the custom WooCommerce layouts are created within the Divi Library itself. It is here that you can add the modules in any configuration you desire.

After creating the layout it is then linked to the appropriate WooCommerce template file via the Woo Layout Injector’s settings screen.

So first navigate to the Divi Library and click ‘Add New’ to create your first layout:

You can call the layout anything you want, but to keep things simple, we will use the name ‘Woo Single Product’ so it’s easy to refer to later.

Set the template type to ‘Layout’ and check the ‘Global’ box:

You will now see the Divi Builder and can start designing your layout. Any of the section types and column options can be used for your design.

To start adding the WooCommerce single product elements click on ‘Insert Module(s)’.

Once you have added all of the Woo Modules for your layout it’s time to ‘connect’ the layout to WooCommerce.

This is done via the plugin settings:

Simply choose the layout that created in the first step and link it to the single product page.

Now you have a global layout that will be displayed on all of your single product pages.

This may be the best option as customers will likely appreciate a standard format across the shop.

However, it’s also possible to create custom layouts for each product category or tag. To achieve this simply create another layout with the WooCommerce modules and link it to the appropriate category or tag.

This can be set on the product page itself. The plugin adds an additional meta box to the product pages that allows you to choose which layout for that unique product:

Creating custom layouts for the archive pages works in a similar way but this time you have to create two layouts:

The first layout is the ‘Loop Item’. This creates the layout for each instance of the product as displayed on the archive pages:

The second layout is the archive page itself which uses the ‘Loop Archive’ module to display all of the products.

What is the WordPress Loop?

The loop is used in WordPress themes and plugins to display a list of posts (or in this case products) on a page. It ‘loops through’ all of the items, displays them and keeps checking for further instances until complete.

For the loop item you can choose from any of the custom WooCommerce modules. For example:

For the archive page itself you can add any of the standard Divi modules but must include the ‘ET Woo Loop Archive’ module for the products to display…

In the general settings for this module you simply need to select the loop layout you previously created:

And then, finally, link it all together on the plugin settings page:

You can set custom layouts for the shop page, category archives and tag archives. Each category or tag can be overridden with additional custom layouts.

Conclusion

The Woo Layout Injector is a must-have plugin in any freelancer’s toolkit. Not only does it give you unparalleled control over the WooCommerce product and archive pages but it saves many hours of custom coding.

Providing your clients with real-time testing and optimization is a proven path to making money with Divi. By increasing conversion rates you have the power to generate additional profits for your clients and in return generate a substantial income as an e-commerce optimization expert.

]]>The Divi Builder is intuitive, easy to use and perfect for beginners. With a little training, it’s easy to create gorgeous layouts in no time at all. This makes Divi the perfect choice for the WordPress end-user who wants to get their site up and running fast.

But where does this leave the Freelancer? If Divi is so easy to use why would a client be willing to outsource the project?

1.Time Equals Money

Running a small business is hard work, and often it’s just not possible to dedicate the time to a web project.

Even if a client is entirely capable of creating a website, they understand the basic economics – the cost of their time is greater than the cost of hiring a freelance.

Although this might sound too good to be true, it’s amazing how many times I’ve listened to a client say “I could do it…but I just don’t have the time”.

Positioning yourself as trustworthy, responsible and competent is often all it takes to make money with Divi.

2. The Divi Fan Club

Divi 3.0 launched with great fanfare and continues to be promoted through affiliates, paid advertising and many other promotional methods. In short, it has been plastered across the web.

Before choosing a platform, or hiring a freelancer, many potential clients spend time researching the different technologies available.

Much in the same way that WordPress is regarded as the de facto platform for small business websites, Divi is becoming one of the most highly sought after themes.

The number one reason is, of course, the ‘visual builder’ which gives the client a feeling of control unrivaled by other platforms.

In fact, we have been pleasantly surprised that end-clients specifically seek out Divi designers and developers through many of the Divi Facebook Groups.

So, the simple reality is many clients will be attracted to your services just because you specialize in Divi-based designs.

3. Knowing just a ‘little more’ than the average user

A quick search on any one of the Divi Facebook Groups will reveal a simple truth:

99% of ALL questions regarding Divi involve CSS

This fact creates a HUGE opportunity for Divi professionals.

Many end-users purchase Divi and attempt to build out their website with the complete faith it is ‘all they need’ to create a beautiful website.

And, while this is ‘almost’ correct, the majority of users get stuck with the last 10%.

They just need to align their columns properly, or they just need to add a little padding around a button, or they just need to stretch a background image.

All of this can be done of course, and it’s not hard to do, but it requires one thing they don’t have and are not willing to learn:

CSS Skills

By understanding the basics of CSS and how that applies in a Divi context, you will set yourself apart from the 99% and make your skills highly valuable to hundreds of thousands of potential clients.

And the best thing is (and this is a secret I hope you don’t share)….CSS is EASY to learn. You DO NOT need to become some whizz-kid coder.

With just a basic phrase book of CSS essentials, your technical prowess will make you seem like a coding genius to end-users and potential clients.

…

The power, simplicity, and popularity of Divi has created enormous opportunity for freelancers and aspiring entrepreneurs. By capitalizing on the three factors mentioned in this article; Time, Popularity and Knowledge, you will have all it takes to become successful and make money with Divi.

]]>Divi CSS Workflow – Part IIhttps://1wd.tv/divi-css-workflow-part-ii/
Tue, 28 Feb 2017 12:22:13 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2980In this article, we suggest some additional best practices that help to bring consistency and organization to your workflow.

Block – a standalone entity that is meaningful on its own, such as ‘header,’ ‘menu,’ and ‘button‘

Element – part of a block that has no meaning on its own, except about the block, e.g. ‘header title,’ ‘menu item,’ and ‘list-item.’

Modifier – a flag on a block or an element which is used to change appearance or behavior, e.g. ‘color yellow,’ ‘size big,’ or ‘fixed‘

Although we will need to, on occasion, add CSS classes to markup in a code module, the vast majority of classes will be created for sections, rows, columns, and modules.

Therefore, we will mostly be working at the ‘block’ level.
In addition to the standard BEM methodology, we recommend appending block level names with the purpose or location of the element you are styling.

E.g. ‘.section_hero’ or ‘blurb_home’ or ‘map_contact’’

For variations and modifications that cannot be achieved with the page builder options, the classes can be further appended:

Additionally, there are certain situations where ‘helper classes’ can be extremely useful. These should be used sparingly, though, to avoid confusion, and only when they solve common problems.

A good example of this is when you need to vertically align elements inside of a column. Since this task is likely to be repeated on multiple elements, it makes sense to turn it into a helper class, rather than to use a modifier.

‘.vertical-align’, rather than ‘section_hero_vertical_align’.

Finally, to distinguish our custom CSS from that of the parent theme we will prefix all of our classes with a unique identifier:

E.g. ‘.lab_vertical_align’ , ‘lab_section_hero’ and so on.

Adhering to a class naming convention provides several benefits:

It avoids specificity issues with the parent theme’s stylesheet

It makes the code easy to read and semantically appropriate

It keeps your stylesheet organized when working within a team.

Targeting Elements with CSS Selectors

A final point, worth noting, is the necessity of CSS selectors to target elements within modules.

Divi class names can only be added at the section, row, column and module level. They cannot be added to elements within the module unless of course, you are adding custom markup to a code module.

For example, it is possible to add a custom class to a testimonial module but, to target only the author text, further specificity is required:

‘.lab_testimonial_home .et_pb_testimonial_author’

It is worthwhile getting to grips with some of the basic CSS selectors to supercharge your skills. Understanding how to target elements within elements will give you a whole new ability to style your Divi designs in ways you previously thought impossible.

…

The Divi Builder provides some powerful tools for creating stunning websites. However, a sprinkle of CSS here and there is almost unavoidable. By adhering to a consistent CSS methodology, it’s easy to optimize your workflow and speed up development time.

]]>Divi CSS Workflow – Part Ihttps://1wd.tv/divi-css-workflow-part-i/
Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:05:10 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2920In this article, we look at some of the nuances of Divi's CSS and suggest best practices for an optimized workflow.

]]>In Divi 3.0 there are plenty of places to put your CSS. It can be added to sections, rows, columns, modules and has a special area in the theme options. Additionally, if you are using a child theme, CSS can be inserted in the stylesheet.

However, with all these choices it can be difficult to decide the best CSS workflow for your Divi designs.

In this article, we look at some of the nuances of Divi’s CSS and suggest some best practices for an optimized workflow.

Where is the best place to store my custom CSS?

On the one hand, it is super convenient to add CSS in the page builder, but on the other hand, this can cause confusion when trying to remember where exactly that specific rule is located.

For simplicity sake, we recommend putting all of your custom CSS in one location. This makes it much easier to overcome specificity issues and keep your rules clean and organized.

When it comes to the which location you choose this is really down to personal preference.

Personally, I’m a big fan of CSS Hero’s ‘Inspector Pro,’ as it allows you to add custom rules on-the-fly so you can see the changes happen ‘live.’

A great alternative, however, is your child theme’s custom stylesheet. This allows you to overwrite the rules of the parent theme while remaining safe from future parent theme updates.

If you are not using a child theme or CSS Hero, the next best place would be the ‘Custom CSS’ box in the Divi ‘Theme Options’ panel:

What CSS Classes do I use to target sections, rows or modules?

Let’s start out by explaining what you should not do. I recently made this mistake myself and spent a long time rewriting all of my custom CSS

Divi uses a dynamic class naming convention for sections, rows, and modules.
This works in a top to bottom fashion specific to the element in use. For example, if we add two sections to our layout, the one that is closest to the top will use the CSS class:

.et_pb_section_0

And the one below it:

.et_pb_section_1

However, these classes are added dynamically, based on the location of the section in the order of elements.

So, if we were to style .et_pb_section_0 in our custom stylesheet, it would be easy to believe our custom styles apply uniquely to that element.

But this is not the case…

If we then swapped the sections around, so that the one of the top is now on the bottom, our styles would apply to the wrong section!

This is why the ‘Custom CSS’ tabs of the sections, rows and modules do not allow you to write CSS declarations, only CSS properties.

That way, if you move a section, row or module within the builder your CSS rules will still apply, specifically to that section, row, or module.

Luckily, Divi not only allows us to write CSS properties in every element but also add custom classes:

These classes are transportable when and if you adjust the order of elements.

If you target an element, using the Custom CSS Class you added to a section, row, or module, and then move that element to a new position within the Divi builder, your styles will still apply to that unique element.

There are many options for custom CSS when it comes to Divi. From our current research and testing we have come up with the following best practices:

Keep all of your custom CSS in one location, rather than scattered throughout sections, rows or modules.

Add custom CSS classes to the section, row, or module you want to target.

In part two we will take a deeper look at the Divi CSS workflow, focusing on class naming conventions and specificity.

]]>Is Divi for life…or just for Christmas?https://1wd.tv/divi-life-just-christmas/
Mon, 20 Feb 2017 12:28:30 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2497In this article, we argue that moving to Divi has far more advantages than dangers.

Divi 3.0 is a fantastic theme that helps you create beautiful websites without writing code.

It’s available as one of the eighty-seven themes that come with an Elegant Themes membership.

With the Developer & Lifetime plans, you also get the Divi Builder – the standalone plugin version of the drag and drop builder that works with any theme.

If you want to continue using the page builder but move to another theme, all of your layouts can be exported from the initial site and imported to the new site using the portability option of the builder plugin.

However, if you switch from Divi to another theme that does not use the builder plugin you will be left with nothing but a big block of shortcodes.

This has caused great contention in the wider WordPress community. Many warn against the dangers of theme and plugin ‘lock in’ and steer their audience away from Divi towards alternatives such as Beaver Builder.

Many of our own members have expressed concerns about the Divi, and worry that they will be unable to change themes in the future.

In this article, we look at the reality of the situation and argue that moving to Divi has far more advantages than dangers.

Shortcodes vs. ‘Pure’ Code

For several years we used a child theme version of Responsive that incorporated Bootstrap. This made it super fast and easy to generate layouts and templates by coding with the standard Bootstrap classes.

Creating multi-column responsive layouts was a breeze, by simply using the built-in grid system.

You’d have to dig hard to find a single shortcode in any of our pages or posts.

But, what would happen if we chose to move to another CSS framework, such as Foundation or a different theme that did not include Bootstrap…would it work…just like that?

No! It would break…hard.

All of the CSS classes in the markup would need rewriting, and the site would require a huge overhaul to get it working again.

So, you could say we were ‘locked in’ to Bootstrap, destined to use it for the rest of our lives, always at the mercy of its rules and procedures.

In reality, though, nothing is further from the truth.

Nothing is set in stone, shortcodes can be stripped, CSS can be rewritten, and designs can be changed.

However, it does beg the question of why you are changing themes…

Why on earth would you or your client want to change themes if the design and content are going to be exactly the same?

The simple answer is: they wouldn’t.

Clients really don’t care what code underlies their website. They have much more important things to worry about.

When they request to change themes, it is the design, functionality, and ease-of-use they are interested in.

It makes no difference whether the builder plugin spits of ‘pure code,’ ‘shortcodes’ or ‘unicorn poo.’

If you are going to be switching out themes every other week, then do not install any plugins, do not write any custom CSS, do not make a child theme and do not use WordPress to its greatest advantage.

In fact, if you are seriously worried about how ‘pure’ your code don’t even bother installing WordPress.

Theme vs. Framework

As mentioned previously, we used the Responsive Theme for years. Many client sites went through multiple re-builds and total design changes without moving to another theme.

This is because we used the theme, along with Bootstrap, as a framework.

A framework is much more than a ‘skin’ for your website.

It provides an underlying front-end structure as well as a predefined library of elements and styles.

This dramatically speeds up development time and prevents the designer from constantly re-writing common layouts and elements each and every time.

Becoming familiar with a basic set of Lego blocks that can be reassembled to suit the needs of the client is a million times more efficient than re-molding plastic.

Divi is no different. When viewed as a ‘framework’ rather than just a ‘theme’ the benefits quickly become apparent.

Divi unlike most themes you will find in the WordPress repository or on ThemeForest. It’s different because it does not have one ‘specific’ use-case.

Divi gives designers a ‘blank slate’ so they can quickly build a wide range of complex layouts (sections, rows, and columns), along with a library of elements (40 +modules).

But the greatest advantage, which is miles ahead of anything we built with Bootstrap, is Divi’s front-end, WYSIWYG editing experience.

This brings back the competitive edge that was being lost to behemoths like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly.

Clients get the best of both worlds; a custom design tailored to their exact needs and desires, and an elegant front-end experience that allows them to change basic elements, such as text and images, on the fly.

…

Divi is not just another ‘theme.’ It is a framework for creating beautiful websites with WordPress. Freelancer’s can benefit from its library elements and win back the competitive edge from the robots of web design.

If you are on the fence about Divi, or page builders in general, take a quick look at the number of jobs that have been replaced by machine automation. To remain current is to stay competitive and Divi will help you do just that.

]]>5 Innovative Plugins That Make Divi Even More Powerful!https://1wd.tv/5-innovative-plugins-make-divi-even-powerful/
Wed, 15 Feb 2017 11:56:58 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2416In this article we look at five innovative plugins that make Divi even more powerful.

Divi Switch

Divi Switch provides over 50 toggles that activate more than 100 customizations. Many of these provide some great visual changes that would otherwise require lots of custom modifications. What’s best is that you can combine these changes is various ways to create some truly unique customizations.

Divi Dashboard Welcome

Divi Dashboard Welcome is a nifty little plugin that gives you full control over the WordPress dashboard area. This allows you to add your own branding, or your client’s branding to the ‘Getting Started’ area.

You can upsell additional services, create a client support hub, add links or videos and much more.

Divi Ghoster

Divi Ghoster helps you white-label both the front and back end of your website. It hides the your use of Divi development from the source code and theme detectors. You can replace any instance of Divi appearing on the back end of your website with custom text and graphics of your choosing.

]]>How To Use Facebook Ads To Make Money With Divihttps://1wd.tv/use-facebook-ads-make-money-divi/
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 14:09:07 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2389In this article, we look at the higher level strategy of using Facebook Ads to make money with Divi.

Facebook advertising is a great platform to make money with Divi. You can set up an ad campaign for as little as $10 per day and start seeing results immediately. It’s built in targeting options make it simple to deliver your advertisements to exactly the right audience.

For example, if you are selling a Divi training course, you can advertise directly to people who have already shown an interest in Elegant Themes, WordPress & Web Design.

However, there are many different types of Facebook Ads and, without a coherent strategy, it’s easy for people to get frustrated and dismiss the opportunity.

This is probably due to a misunderstanding of what’s needed for a successful paid acquisition program.

In this article, we look at the higher level strategy of using Facebook Ads to make money with Divi.

Every Online Business Needs a Funnel

What every successful campaign has, and what every business needs, is a funnel.

A funnel is a way to drive potential customers from awareness of your brand to a purchase of your product or service. In short, it is the process of building a relationship.

It’s important to remember that over 95% of visitors do not make a purchase on their first visit to your website. In fact, some studies have shown that it takes on average 16 days from initial impression to first purchase.

So, with that in mind, it would be a big mistake to deliver a Facebook Ad to strangers asking them to make a purchase.

Even a best case scenario would mean less than 5% of people might buy the product (and that would be a unicorn example).

Also, people don’t visit Facebook to make a purchase, they hang out with their friends, watch silly videos and share content. Anything that interrupts this has the potential to be completely ignored (or worse still, complained about).

A successful campaign has multiple steps that cohere with the customer’s’ journey:

Awareness > Familiarity > Consideration > Purchase

And only some of these steps will happen on Facebook.

The exact ads you run will, of course, depend on the product you are offering but let’s use an example to illustrate the process…

Let’s say we are selling a course called ‘Design Your First Website With Divi.’

Awareness

At the Awareness stage, we can presume that our potential customers are researching how to build a website, what platform to choose or what WordPress theme to use.

So, we would need to create some appropriate content that engages our prospects in their current state of mind.

For example, we could write some blog posts with the following topics:

9 Reasons Divi Is The Easiest Way To Create a Professional Website How To Create a Website In One Weekend With The Divi Theme 7 Reasons Divi is the Best WordPress Theme for Beginners

etc. etc.

We would then promote these articles on Facebook to our target audience.

The aim of the campaign would be to get as many people to read the article and engage with the content.

But the real secret here is that anyone who clicked on the article link and visited our website would be added to our Facebook ‘custom audience’.

A custom audience is a special list of Facebook profiles that can be used to ‘retarget’ potential customers at a later stage.

In this scenario, it would work by inserting a tracking code (aka ‘Pixel’) on your website.

Every time a Facebook user viewed one of your blog posts they would automatically be added to your custom audience.

Familiarity

At the familiarity stage, we have one key objective: to convert the visitors who read our blog posts into email subscribers.

To do this, we would create a Lead Magnet that appeals to our target customers.

Making the assumption that our potential customers have now decided to use Divi (after being convinced by our persuasive blog posts), our lead magnet could be:

‘The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Divi Website Design’
Our Facebook Ad, at this stage, would only be shown to those prospects that read our articles in the Awareness stage – e.g. our custom audience.

Since they have already read our blog posts, there is a much higher likelihood that they will be interested in our free offer.

Anyone that signs up is added to our email list and is primed for the next stage of the customer journey.

Consideration

The consideration stage happens primarily in your email marketing funnel. By delivering more free content to your audience, you will deepen the relationship with potential buyers.

Over the course of a few days or weeks, you can gradually introduce your core offer.

By informing your email subscribers what product you are offering some of them will start considering whether it is a purchase they want to make.

You can leave ‘subtle hooks’ in your free content at this stage to point towards your paid offerings.

For example, you could create a short video about customizing the Divi Headers & Footers and mention that you go into much more detail in the full course ‘Design Your First Website With Divi.’

Purchase

At the purchase stage, it’s time to be up front and pitch your product. The objective here is to drive your email subscribers to your sales page. It’s important to have a clearly stated Value Proposition, outlining the benefits and features of your product.

By using a risk-reversal offer (such as a 30-day money back guarantee) or urgency offer (50% discount for the next 24 hours), you will substantially increase the number of paid conversions.

…

Facebook Advertising is a great way to make money with Divi. However, the platform can be confusing unless you have an overall strategy.

To do this, you will need to create a ‘Funnel’ that coheres with the customer’s journey.

This helps to lead the prospect from awareness of your brand to a purchase of your product.

Creating content at every stage will help deepen the relationship and increase the likelihood of a sale.

This is a million times more effective that pitching your products directly to strangers.

]]>5 Proven Ways To Make Money With Divihttps://1wd.tv/5-proven-ways-make-money-divi/
Mon, 13 Feb 2017 17:37:49 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2360In this article, we look at five proven business models that will help you make money with Divi.

]]>Divi is much more than ‘just another theme.’ It is a powerful framework for building feature rich, beautiful websites in less time and is backed up by a lively community full of innovation and entrepreneurship.

This is due in part to Elegant Themes’ generous licensing agreement which allows you to use the theme on unlimited websites. When compared to an extended license from ThemeForest ($2950!) it’s easy to see why Divi’s entrepreneurial community has exploded.

Thousands of freelancers are using the theme and page builder to power their business. Dozens of creative individuals have launched pioneering products that solve problems for the community.

In this article, we look at five proven business models that will help you make money with Divi.

Freelance Web Design Services

In the last few years, the web design market has become more and more competitive. With the rise of SaaS website platforms, like Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace, clients expect more for less.

By choosing Divi as your WordPress workhorse, you get the best of both worlds:

The extensibility and power of WordPress
The WYSIWYG frontend editing experience that clients love

But, best of all, you can cut your development time in half by making use of the awesome Divi Library. The second you create an element, layout or any design component it can be saved to the library for one click recycling on unlimited client projects.

This time saving alone could double your freelance income.

Create & Sell Divi Child Themes

Many business owners know ‘just enough to be dangerous’ when it comes to WordPress and web design. Just like Lego they can stick things together to build a web presence for themselves.

This type of audience will easily be intimidated by the ‘blank slate’ that Divi provides. Instead, they often prefer a ready-to-go solution that can be set up in a few hours.

Divi Child Themes provide the perfect solution!

Creating niche solutions that provide all of the elements a business needs to get up and running can be a highly profitable source of passive income.

In a recent article by Elegant Themes entitled ‘13 Child Themes Perfect for Restaurants’ each solution sold for $35 – $150 a piece.

Even if you sold just two per week, you could quickly net an extra $14k per year!

Create & Sell Divi Layout Packs

For the more seasoned DIYer or Divi Enthusiast, layout packs are an excellent way to add some flavor to your Divi Library.

These can range from collections of beautifully styled elements, such as buttons or social media icons, to bespoke layouts that add an additional level of ‘spice’ to the design.

If you are already freelancing, you’ll likely have some layouts in your library that could easily be turned into fully-fledged products.

These can be sold for a few dollars each or bundled into themed packages for additional value and profit.

Create & Sell Divi Plugins

The Divi Theme is extremely powerful, but just like anything, it has limits. Luckily the theme is highly extensible, which has created a broad array of plugins that extend and enhance the core features of the theme.

If you have a developer mindset and love solving problems, plugin development could be a successful path to Divipreneurship.

Often these plugins are not overly complicated but provide a streamlined way of adding features that would otherwise require code hacks and template modifications.

Create & Sell Divi Courses

The simplicity and power of the Divi builder has inspired many amateurs to set up their own websites. Despite its ease-of-use and great documentation end-users often prefer a highly tailored curriculum that will help them get from A-Z fast.

In addition to this, the Divi development cycle is always moving forward, creating opportunities for new courses every update.

If you enjoy teaching, niche Divi courses can be a fantastic lead generation tool or a standalone product.

Coupled with Elegant Themes’ healthy affiliate program, selling courses might just be one of the most profitable models on this list.
…

If you want to get started making money with Divi there are five core business models worth taking into consideration:

Freelance Design Services

Create & Sell Child Themes

Create & Sell Layout Packs

Create & Sell Plugins

Create & Sell Courses

Whether you prefer designing, developing, teaching or all three there are plenty of opportunities to make money with Divi.

]]>5 Reasons Social Warfare Will Boost Your Social Signalshttps://1wd.tv/5-reasons-social-warfare-will-boost-social-signals/
Tue, 07 Feb 2017 15:50:54 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=2185In this article, we look at five reasons Social Warfare will help boost your social signals.

5. Share Counts

]]>5 Graphics Apps That Will Speed Up Your Design Workflowhttps://1wd.tv/5-graphics-apps-that-will-speed-up-your-design-workflow/
Mon, 30 Jan 2017 13:42:59 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=1969In this article, we look at five of the best apps that speed up your design workflow.

Promoting your business online requires an unending stream of well-designed graphics. But having a full-time designer on staff is just not feasible if you are a solopreneur or freelancer.

You could spend time learning the fundamentals of design and mastering high-end tools like Photoshop, but this can be overwhelming, not to mention time-consuming.

Over the past few years, dozens of online apps have launched that streamline the process of creating beautiful graphics.

Just pick a template, change the text, download and away you go!

In this article, we look at five of the best apps that speed up your design workflow.

1. Canva

Canva is a handy tool that makes it easy to create social media images and much more. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface with dozens of pre-built elements and templates.

You can use Canva for free with up to 1GB storage and access to over 8,000 templates. The premium version ‘Canva for Work’ starts at $12.95 and is perfect for teams.

2. Adobe Spark

With Adobe Spark you can create social graphics, web stories and animated videos in seconds. With dozens of curated designs, it’s easy to produce high-impact results without any design skills.

You can use Adobe Spark on the web or any iOS device. It is entirely free to use. Just create an Adobe account and away you go.

3. Pablo by Buffer

Pablo is an image creation tool for social media operated by the team at Buffer. It integrates seamlessly with the social scheduling app and creates beautiful images that fit every social network perfectly.

It can be accessed from any web browser and is completely free to use (whether you have a Buffer account or not).

4. Trakto.io

Trakto.io is a premium product that helps online business create effective digital marketing materials. It can be used to create eBook covers, social media images, presentations, business proposals and much more.

It comes with more than six-hundred unique and awesome templates and thousands of beautiful layouts.

Trakto.io has a free 14-day trial and a premium plan that is just $5/mo.

5. Youzign

Youzign is a design suite that boasts lots of premium features not found in other apps. You can create 3D book covers, remove backgrounds, save your brand colors and integrate directly with your marketing software.

No design skills are required, and it comes with over 1000 high-resolution templates and access to over 1.3 million high-quality free images.

]]>7 Sublime Text Plugins That Make Coding a Breezehttps://1wd.tv/7-sublime-text-plugins-that-make-coding-a-breeze/
Mon, 23 Jan 2017 14:11:11 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=1761In this article, we look at seven plugins that take this great editor to the next level.

How to Install a Plugin

Now that you have Package Control installed simply open up the Command Palette:

Tools > Command Palette:

Type ‘Install Package.’

Hit ‘Enter.’

Then type the name of the package you would like to install (there are hundreds to choose from) and hit enter.

1. Emmet

Emmet lets you write HTML and CSS with abbreviations which then expand into the full code.

2. Sidebar Enhancements

SidebarEnhancements adds some handy tools to the Sublime Text sidebar. With this package installed you will be able to create new files, move files, duplicate, refresh and much more without leaving the editor.

3. CanIUse

CanIUse is a super simple tool that lets you check the browser support for different CSS properties and HTML elements.

All you have to do is highlight the CSS property or the HTML element and it opens the browser at the correct CanIUse.com page.

4. Custom Themes

5. ColorHighlighter

ColorHighlighter highlights every CSS color value in the editor. It works will all of the different values such as HEX, RGB, HSL, etc.

It’s super useful when you forget which code represents which color!

6. SFTP

Switching between SublimeText and an FTP client can be a pain. With Sublime SFTP you can edit, delete, browse and sync files on a remote server without leaving the editor.

7. GhostText

GhostText is a nifty tool that lets you use SublimeText to write in your browser. Everything you type in the editor is instantly updated in the browser (and vice-versa). For this one you need the package and the chrome plugin.

It works well with CodePen so you can take advantage of the live reload but still work in Sublime Text.

…

We haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to Sublime Text packages. There are so many available for every type of workflow. Try out as many as you can and see which one’s work best for you.

]]>Discover the Power of Google Formshttps://1wd.tv/discover-power-google-forms/
Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:42:46 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=1695Googles Forms is a free service that helps you create surveys, contact forms, checkout pages and more.

Googles Forms is a free service that helps you create surveys, contact forms, checkout pages and more. It is part of the Google App suite that includes docs, sheets, and slides. All you need is a basic Google account to get started.

Google Forms was part of Google Sheets until early 2016 when it became a standalone app. Due to this many users are unaware of its powerful features and ease of use.

Many hosted providers charge on a per-form basis, but Google Forms lets you create as many polls, forms or quizzes until you fill up your Google Drive. A free account comes with 15GB of storage, so that’s a lot of forms.

You can send the responses from each form to Google Sheets to store, sort, and organize in a variety of ways. If you use Zapier, you can connect your forms to a variety of other services such as MailChimp, Slack or Twilio. Alternatively, you can set up email notifications for each response or in a daily batch.

When you create a Google Form, you can share it with an internal link, publish it to the web or embed the form on your website.

The Field Types

There are twelve field types, nine question types and text, photo and video fields.

Title, Description & Text – Each form requires a title, but you can choose to hide or show the description. You can add additional text blocks throughout your form.

Short Answer & Paragraph – These fields are useful for names and email addresses or long-form answers. It is possible to validate each of the fields by number, text length or regular expression.

Multiple Choice, Checkboxes, and Dropdowns – You can use these fields to give various options for each of your form questions. The app makes it very easy to add images to each of the answers in multiple choice or checkbox mode.

File Upload – This is useful when you need your form respondents to send additional details, such as images, pdfs or other files. Each file is stored directly in your Google Drive.

Linear Scale – This field is perfect for customer feedback surveys. Your respondents will be able to select a number from a range such as 1 for poor and 5 for excellent.

Time and Date – Perfect for scheduling events or booking forms.

Sections

Sections can be used to help break up a long form. Their power comes with the ability to use conditional logic so that respondents jump to different sections based on their answer.

Quiz Mode

With Quiz Mode enabled an additional ‘Answer Key’ button will appear at the bottom left of each question. You can then set the correct answer for the questions with the multiple choice, checkbox or drop-down fields.

Design

You can set a header color or image along with an accent color for the background.

Responses

You don’t need to configure anything to store the responses. They can be accessed from the Responses tab or sent to Google Sheets by clicking on the green sheets icons.

Sharing

When your form is ready to be published, you can add a confirmation page. It is possible to choose whether the form is only accessible inside your GSuite organization or publicly via a link.

Alternatively, you can share the form via email or to your preferred social network. Google Forms can also be embedded on your website complete with width and height options.

]]>5 Pomodoro Apps for Ultimate Productivityhttps://1wd.tv/5-pomodoro-apps-for-ultimate-productivity/
Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:10:42 +0000https://1wd.tv/?p=1600In this article, we look at five of the best Pomodoro apps for ultimate productivity.

It’s easy to suffer from burnout if you work too long. Attempting to complete a mammoth task in one session can have adverse effects on your health. However, studies have shown that short bursts of focus are much more efficient than multi-hour sessions.

When studying for his University Exams, Francesco Cirillo became quickly distracted and didn’t use his time effectively. In an attempt to solve this problem he decided to get a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, set it for ten minutes, and hyper focus without any distractions.

Forcing himself to work solidly before a well-deserved break meant he got more done, in much less time.

After lots of testing, he settled on the now famous ‘Pomodoro Technique’ which breaks focused time blocks into twenty-five-minute sessions with a five-minute break.

The technique is named after the Italian word for ‘tomato,’ coined from Francesco’s first experiment.

There are many benefits associated with this method:

1. Hyper-focusing for a specified amount of time helps you stick to fixed limits, encouraging you to complete tasks quicker.

2. Larger tasks can be broken down into individual ‘Pomodoros’ rather than trying to tackle a big task in one go.

4. The Pomodoro system eliminates burnout by organizing your work into manageable ‘blocks.’

5. Exercising your will power intensely can have positive side effects in other areas of your life.

Pomodoro timers help structure your work day into twenty-five minute working slots. In this article, we look at five of the best Pomodoro apps for ultimate productivity.

1. FocusBooster

FocusBooster is a straightforward and lightweight digital implementation of the Pomodoro technique. It has an unobtrusive mini-timer so you can monitor your session progress without taking up desktop space. The app also records your Pomodoro sessions and automatically creates timesheets.

FocusBooster also provides full reports to give you an in-depth understanding of where you spend your time. You can even use these reports to create invoices.

The app is available online or through the desktop app on Mac or Windows.

It’s free to try for thirty days and the monthly subscription plans start at $2.99/mo.

2. PomoDoneApp

PomoDoneApp is the easiest way to track your workflow using the Pomodoro technique. It works on top of your current task management service.

To use this app, you do not need to create any tasks. It connects with your favorite task management tools such as ToDoist or Trello so you can get started fast.

It also has a nifty Chrome extension so you can quickly create sessions directly from the browser.

PomoDoneApp’s pricing is based on the number of integrations you wish to use. For two integrations the price is just $12/year.

3. Marinara Timer

The Marinara Timer is a more flexible version of the standard Pomodoro timers. Some people find that twenty-five-minute work segments a little too rigid. Marinara aims to solve this by allowing you to choose a ‘flavor.’

It has a traditional Pomodoro timer with standard time periods.

A custom timer that can be adjusted as you want.

And a kitchen timer so you can just ‘set it and forget it.’

The Marinara timer is a browser-based timer that is completely free to use.

4. Tomighty

Tomighty is a desktop timer for the Pomodoro technique. It is available for Mac or Windows and is completely free to use.

You can choose between a short break or a long break and interrupt the sessions with a pause.

5. Tomato Timer

Tomato Timer is another free to use browser based timer that comes with some nifty keyboard shortcuts and optional desktop alerts.

Maintaining multiple Facebook pages is time-consuming work. It takes hours to organize, create and share content, and even more time to learn what to share.

However, social referrals drive a huge percentage of traffic. In 2016 the amount of traffic generated from social media was almost identical with search engine referrals. This means that now more than ever, maintaining a social media presence is crucial for online success.

Every time a visitor ‘Likes’ your Facebook page your posts are entered into a competition to ‘reach’ that users news feed. On average over 1,500 posts compete for attention. This has resulted in a drastic decline in organic reach for Facebook pages. In 2012, organic reach was around 16% but dropped to as little as 2.27% in 2015.

But all is not lost, with a basic understand of Facebook’s algorithm everyone can take advantage of social media referrals.

To be effective on social media, it’s essential to publish a range of different content types. Luckily, there are some great tools to manage the process.However, many of these tools simple automate scheduling which doesn’t help with engagement.

PostPlanner is different. Not only does it help you schedule your posting it also helps you FIND great content to share. It takes the guesswork out of post performance by ranking content that is 100% scientifically guaranteed to perform.

Here’s how it works:

Find

Inside PostPlanner, you can browse recommended feeds based on your industry and interests. These feeds can be combined into powerful streams, creating a personal library of curated content.

It also has a great section for ‘statuses’ with questions, fill-in-the-gaps, trivia and much more. Scattering these into your schedule make a huge difference with engagement.

Plan

Planning and scheduling posts can be a daunting task. With PostPlanner you can create a ‘Plan’ for your pages and accounts, then plug in your content streams. There is no need to worry about finding the right posting time as PostPlanner’s algorithm creates the perfect posting schedule and adds it to your plan to help you get started.

Predict

PostPlanner has custom algorithms that measure the data for every content source in your stream. It reviews past performance and predicts future engagement specific to your audience. So every piece of content in your stream is star-ranked, and 100% scientifically guaranteed to perform.

Learn

If you want to know more about social media PostPlanner has you covered. They send their customers dozens of e-books and resources packed full of fun, creative ideas to use in your campaigns. The onboarding process is truly unique, and I have never experienced anything quite like it.

Pricing

PostPlanner is only $9/mo for ten social media profiles, up to one hundred posts per day and up to a thousand posts planned. When compared to other social media management tools (that have only half the features) the price is incredible. Take PostPlanner for a spin today and skyrocket your engagement on Facebook, Twitter and more.

]]>5 Awesome Social Sharing Plugins for 2017https://1wd.tv/5-awesome-social-sharing-plugins-for-2017/
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 09:59:27 +0000http://1wd.tv/?p=1408In this article, we look at five awesome social sharing plugins for 2017.

For some years now Google has included ‘social signals’ as a ranking factor in their algorithm. It counts the number of times your content has been tweeted, liked, shared and reposted. If the engagement is high, this will factor into the rank position for any relevant keywords.

Beyond the SEO factor of ‘social signals,’ the virality of social media often accounts for more traffic than the search engines themselves. In fact, many businesses thrive with visitors from Facebook alone and consider Google a nice addition but not the main goal.

One of the easiest ways to start generating traffic from social media is to install social sharing buttons on your website. These can be placed around your content to encourage your visitors to share on their own social networks.

Fortunately, this is easy to do if you are using WordPress but the choice of which plugin to install can be overwhelming. Currently, at the Plugin repository a search for ‘social sharing buttons’ returned over 900+ results!

In this article, we look at five awesome social sharing plugins for 2017.

1. Monarch

Monarch Social Sharing Plugin by Elegant Themes lets you choose from over twenty social sharing networks to display on your website. You can add the icons in five different locations: a floating sidebar, above or below content, on images and videos, as an automatic popup or an automatic fly-in.

The pop-ups and fly-ins can be triggered by various actions such as leaving a comment or after purchasing

You can also add social follow buttons and change the appearance of all your buttons using a variety of customization options.

2. Social Warfare

With Social Warfare you can change the color of your buttons to your websites branding with over five thousand possible style combinations. You can display social share counts prominently which is a great psychological trigger to increase sharing. Rather conveniently you can set ‘minimum’ counts before the numbers show, so this doesn’t have a negative impact.

One of the unique benefits of Social Warfare is the ability to add custom images, titles and description that accompanying your content when it is shared. By adding a correctly sized image to each of your posts, the content will display professional on Facebook, Pinterest, Google + and more.

You can create in post tweetable quotes that make it super easy for people to share. Custom tweets can also be configured for each post for added personalization.

Social Warfare is a premium plugin that starts at $29/mo for a single site installation.

3. Ultimate Social by WPSmarter

Ultimate Social by WPSmarter has over twenty-five social buttons and twenty-two fan counters. It has an incredible twenty different sharing locations including a mobile bar, floating top and standard top & bottom placements.

The plugin also integrates with lots of other services such as WooCommerce, bbPress, Easy Digital Downloads and VisualComposer.

The regular license is just $15.

4. Fixed WordPress Social Share Buttons

One of the standout features of Fixed WordPress Social Share Buttons is that it doesn’t use the original JavaScript files of the social media platforms. Without the need to load these additional files the speed is considerably faster.

The regular license is just $18.

5. WP Social Sharing

WP Social Sharing is a free plugin available from the WordPress repository which adds Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and Pinterest social sharing buttons to posts, pages and custom post types.

The plugin uses CSS3 to generate the icons, loading faster than traditional images and comes with a provided shortcode for added flexibility.

]]>7 Landing Page Builders That Skyrocket Conversionshttps://1wd.tv/7-landing-page-builders-skyrocket-conversions/
Mon, 09 Jan 2017 14:23:54 +0000http://1wd.tv/?p=1371In this article, we look at seven landing page builders that not only improve conversions but make the process fast and easy.

A landing page is an entry point to a website that visitors ‘land on’ from elsewhere. They usually have no global navigation and are separate from the main site with one, focused objective.

Landing Pages help increase conversion rates as they work to funnel visitors toward an intended conversion goal such as signing up to a mailing list, joining a webinar or purchasing a product.

They are an essential part of any promotional funnel and are can make or break the first impression of your brand. A/B or split testing works hand in hand with landing pages to ensure the highest possible opt-in rates.

You can code Landing Pages from scratch, use a WordPress plugin or purchase a standalone service which handles everything for you.

In this article, we look at seven landing page builders that not only improve conversions but make the process fast and easy.

1. LeadPages

LeadPages is a standalone service that has over 350+ templates for every industry. It has a drag and drop builder, so there is no need for coding. LeadPages has a lead magnet delivery service which streamlines the list-building process. It also integrates with lots of email marketing services and has built-in A/B testing and analytics.

LeadPages starts at $25/mo for a standard account.

2. UnBounce

UnBounce is similar in scope to LeadPages but has some useful additional features. It natively integrates with WordPress, so there is no need for complicated DNS record or CNAME changes. UnBounce also has a ‘Dynamic Text Replacement’ feature which is extremely useful if you are running AdWord campaigns. It swaps out select keywords from the copy of the page and matches them with the search phrase the visitor entered into Google. This creates a strong consistency and can help significantly with the campaigns overall ROI.

UnBounce starts at $49/mo for a starter account.

3. InstaPage

One of the unique features of InstaPage is its ability to import any landing page and create a perfectly mirrored template. It copies the design and content then instantly rebuilds it as an InstaPage template. If you have landing pages elsewhere and want to stay on brand, this might be a useful timesaver. It is also the only Landing Page builder on this list that integrates with a royalty-free stock image library. This gives you direct, easy access to over 31 million photos, videos, and vectors for one flat price.

InstaPage starts at $29/mo for a basic account.

4. Lander

Lander has a limited but beautiful collection of landing page templates in six different categories. It has A/B testing, dynamic text replacement, Facebook integrations and basic email marketing capabilities and much more.

One of the neat things about Lander is that the pricing starts at only $16/mo when you purchase an annual plan, making it one of the cheapest standalone options.

5. Landingi

Landingi prides itself on its easy-to-use, intuitive page builder. You can start from scratch or use one of their templates. Landingi tailors its templates toward’s e-commerce businesses and offers, for example, a wide range of ‘patterns’ for the electronic equipment and household appliances industry.

Landingi base their pricing model on the number of leads rather than features. Starting with 1000 leads on your account the full feature-set is only $29/mo.

6. WordPress Landing Pages

WordPress Landing Pages works as a standalone plugin or hand in hand with WordPress Calls to Action & WordPress Leads to create a powerful lead generation system. It has a visual editor, and you can run A/B or multivariate tests to improve conversions. Landing Pages also has a full templating framework built with Developers and Designers in mind.

Landing Pages is completely free to use and is the perfect option for marketers on a budget.

7. OptimizePress

OptimizePress comes in Theme & Plugin formats and fully integrates with WordPress. It helps you create sales pages, landing pages, membership portals, webinar registration pages and more. It has a live editor for code-free design and ships with 30 pre-made templates. If you just need to create a landing page this plugin may be overkill but for dedicated marketers, it’s an attractive option.

OptimizePress starts at $97 one-time for basic features and activation on up to three websites.

It’s easy to make writing errors in emails, social media posts and elsewhere online. What we don’t often realize is that a lot of people make personal judgments if they notice our mistakes. Whether you are ‘all fingers and thumbs’ on your phone or just make a typo, writing mistakes can be very embarrassing.

It’s essential to make a good impression when writing content for your business. In 2015 a study found that executives rate content less desirable if it included just one typo or grammar mistake.

Luckily there is a great solution that goes beyond the basic ‘’spell checker, ’ and it does a great job at catching many of our most common mistakes.

Grammarly is a useful app that makes sure everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is a grammar checker for proofreading articles, blog posts, emails and pretty much anywhere else you type on the web. It has a handy chrome extension which allows it to check for mistakes and lots of different websites and a web-app for checking longer form content.

The Chrome Extension

The Chrome extension can be enabled on many different websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail. It can be turned on or off directly from the browser.

It’s very useful inside of Facebook and highlights mistakes as you type a new post or respond to a comment:

It also works very well inside of Gmail for mistake-free emailing:

Unfortunately there is no support yet for Google Docs, but hopefully, this will be rectified in the future.

The Web App

In addition to the Chrome app you can log into the Grammarly interface and check longer form content:

This gives you a much more detailed view of your grammar, punctuation and spelling issues. Each mistake has a useful little card that explains, in detail, what the mistake is and how to correct it.

Standard spell checkers, like those you would find inside of Microsoft Word or Pages merely highlight you errors for simple correction. While this is useful, it’s easy to become reliant on them and never really see personal improvement.

With Grammarly, however, it’s easy to uncover bad habits and improve your writing. For example:

Unnecessarily using the passive voice
Ending sentences with prepositions
Using a squinting modifier
Overusing the same adjective

You can specify the document type you are working on for contextual analysis and control what type of errors it searches for:

There is also a ‘Plagiarism Checker’ that finds unoriginal text by checking against a database of over 8 billion web pages.

Additional Apps

Grammarly has a Windows version of its web app. This does not provide any other features it’s nice to have a desktop version available.

If you work a lot with Microsoft Office, you’ll be pleased to know there is a dedicated extension that improves Microsoft’s native proof-reading capabilities.

How Much is Grammarly?

Grammarly has a free version that checks 150 of the most critical grammar and spelling checks. The full feature set, however, is only available with the Premium version which is just $11.66/mo paid annually.

…

While no app can replace human proof-reading (yet!) Grammarly is a fantastic way to not only alert you to mistakes but also help improve your writing on the fly.

If you spend a lot of time writing emails, blog posts or any content, then give Grammarly a try. You’ll feel like a stronger writer and find the process more enjoyable.

]]>Increase Your Sales ROI With Gmail Templateshttps://1wd.tv/increase-your-sales-roi-with-gmail-templates/
Thu, 05 Jan 2017 14:42:21 +0000http://1wd.tv/?p=1306In this article, we look at how to get started with 'Canned Responses' and use them for lucrative email templates.

In 2015, the average US worker spent over six hours every single day checking and writing emails. We write emails for prospecting, scheduling, following up, networking and find ourselves endlessly clicking ‘unsubscribe’ to all of those lists we find joined.

If you find yourself writing the same type of email over and over again, you should consider setting up Gmail Templates (aka ‘Canned Responses’). They take only a few seconds to create and can boost your productivity tenfold.Furthermore, if you are prospecting or asking for referrals using email templates that work can have an enormous impact on your success.

In this article, we look at how to get started with ‘Canned Responses’ and use them for lucrative email templates.

Step 1: Enable Canned Responses

Click on the gear icon in Gmail and navigate to ‘Settings.’

Choose the menu item that says ‘Labs.’

In the search box type ‘canned responses’ and choose ‘enable.’

Step 2: Create a Save a Canned Response

Create a new email by clicking on ‘Compose.’ Then, type the email you would like to save as a template. Save it as a canned response by clicking on the down-pointing arrow and choosing ‘New Canned Response.’ Finally, give you email template a name for future reference.

Step 3: Insert Your Template Into a New Email

Click on the down-pointing arrow and choose ‘Canned Responses.’ and select the name of the template you just created. Done and done!

…

Creating canned responses in Gmail can be done in a few clicks but writing templates that convert requires experimentation. Always consider who you are writing to and how you can help them before you ask for anything. The more you try, the better you will get, and the ‘golden nuggets’ can quickly be saved and re-used with a single click.

Cold Email can be extremely effective in building business opportunities if its done in the right way. With the proper training, you’ll be amazed at how many people respond to personal yet unsolicited email.

When I started freelancing several years ago, I built my entire business on cold email with strangers from thousands of miles away. If you would like to learn more about this surprisingly beneficial strategy reach out today: luke@1wd.tv

]]>Boost Your Social Engagement with Rocketiumhttps://1wd.tv/boost-your-social-engagement-with-rocketium/
Wed, 04 Jan 2017 16:02:06 +0000http://1wd.tv/?p=1278If you run an online business in 2017 and want to make an impact, social video should be an essential part of your weekly content schedule.

The demand for social video is enormous and growing every day. In April of 2015, Facebook reported a daily average of four billion video views. Just a few months later, in November this doubled to over eight billion. This accounts for 760 years of watch time every day!

So what is social video and why is it so important?

Social videos can take many forms, but they all have a couple of factors in common:

1) They are optimized for a particular social media platform.

For example, on YouTube, your video can be any duration and should be uploaded in a 16:9 ratio. On Instagram, however, the maximum length is only 60 seconds and is best in a square or vertical (4:5) ratio.

2) They are optimized for shareability

Social video aims to be fun, engaging and incite a desire in the viewer to share with their friends and connections.

Video has a unique ability to quickly convey a message unlike traditional forms of web content such as blog posts and podcasts. The same point might require 1,000 words but only 45 seconds in video form. It also requires much less of the viewer, who can passively watch a video without having to focus on a long-form post.

As millennials watch less and less TV and spend even more time on social media, captivating the 18-35-year-old demographic has become a video-first endeavour.

In fact, many social platforms favor video posts and reward the publisher with increased reach through their algorithms.

Ever since the first ‘talkie’ film was released in 1927 TV & Film has been an audio-visual experience. The rise of social video however, might be the beginning of the end for this trend.

In fact, up to 85 percent of social video is played with the sound turned off. This is partly because Facebook and other platforms auto-play video posts without the sound. Only by manually clicking on the speaker icon does the audio begin to stream.

On average, Facebook users check their feed around 14 times per day, at work, on the train, in the library and many other places where the sound just isn’t socially acceptable.

Content producers have capitalized on this trend and are producing soundless videos, often with text overlays, creating an audio-free experience that still benefits from the high engagement value of video.

If you run an online business in 2017 and want to make an impact, social video should be an essential part of your weekly content schedule. This is a positive trend for small companies as silent social video requires little or no budget and removes the need for expensive equipment, video talent or editing skills.

How do you make silent social videos?

Just a few short months ago the only way to create typographic social video was through the use of video editing programs such as iMovie or Adobe After Effects. Creating videos this way required a steep learning curve, lots of creative imagination and many hours in front of the computer screen.

Luckily today there is zero-need to purchase these expensive programs. In fact, there is no need to spend a dime.

Rocketium is the future of social video and is so easy to use a six year old could do it.

What is Rocketium?

Rocketium is a free online app that helps you create beautiful videos in minutes with text, images, and video. Just upload your graphics, type text, choose a theme and away you go.

There is no learning curve to using Rocketium; anyone can create stunning videos for social media.

What’s more, you can even create videos for multiple platforms by selecting from a choice of portrait, landscape or square videos depending on the network of your choice.

The photo and video curation process is sped up by the built in copyright-free image and video search that makes putting together your content fast and straightforward.

If you are feeling creative Rocketium allows you to customize with over 20+ settings, such as filters, colors, animations, motion graphics and more.

But don’t be put off by the options, even without changing a single setting the creation process can take as little as five minutes and still produce a professional result.

Rocketium is perfect for bloggers, digital journalists, markets, teachers and anyone who is serious about upping their social media game.

How To Create A Social Video with Rocketium

Step 1: Choose a Topic

The first step is to decide what you want to say to your followers. You could promote an end of season sale, wish your customers a happy new year, promote your product or service or even turn a pre-written blog post into a video. The possibilities are endless.

If you ever get stuck for ideas, go back to a piece of content you find interesting and remake it in video form. This could be a recipe for your favorite cookies, a tutorial on how to use your favorite app or just a list of your favorite movies from last year.

Step 2: Sign up for a FREE Rocketium Account

You can sign up using Facebook, Google, Twitter or, if you prefer, with an email address. Free users can:

There are several paid options available if you would like to remove the watermark and benefit from additional features but this is not required to make full use of the software.

Step 3: Add Your Content

Rocketium is organized in a similar fashion to presentation software such as Google Slides or Powerpoint. You can add multiple ‘scenes,’ each with their own image or video and captions that appear inline with the graphics.

To add graphics click on the Magnifier icon to search from millions of copyright-free images or video.

Next, add in your captions. These are the words that will appear alongside the video or image. You can add up to 80 characters per caption, but there is no limit on the number of captions you can create. Rocketium takes care of the transition between captions and will loop the video if necessary.

Optionally you can record voice-over audio for each of your scenes. Although, this is not required.

Step 4: Choose a Theme

You can choose from fifteen pre-built themes and explore the different styles by clicking on the preview button. These do most of the work for you, but can be tweaked in the settings later on. Just choose the one that most closely fits your design style or business branding.

When you have decided, click on ‘Choose Theme.’

Step 5: Preview & Customize

The theme itself does a pretty fantastic job and the initial result is near perfect. However, if you want to customize the look and feel of your video, there are many options to choose from.

Music: You can choose from dozens of excellent background tracks in 10 different categories. Alternatively, you can always upload your own.

Text position: It’s easy to change the position of the text on the screen by selecting from one of the nine options. You can give the text a solid background if it is hard to read or you would like to emphasize it further.

Text: In the free version of Rocketium you have the ability to change the font, text size, alignment, color, and background color.

Filters: Choose from thirty different photo filters so give you images so flare.

Animations & Effects: You can further customize the scene transitions and text by clicking through the previews.

Finally, you can choose from a desktop, mobile or square version of your video. Everything instantly resizes so that you won’t suffer from any layout issues.

When you finish customizing the video, just hit the ‘Finish’ button, and it will be queued for rendering.

This typically takes 2 or 3 minutes, depending on the length of the video and you will receive an email when it’s done.

Step 6: Download or Share the Video to the Platform of your Choice

You can share your video directly on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube or download it to your desktop. All of your videos are accessible from the ‘Profile’ area of your account and can be redownloaded or further customized as many times as you like.

…

And that’s all there is to it. Create high-quality, professional social videos in minutes using the free online app Rocketium.

Alongside a consistent posting schedule, the videos you created with Rocketium are sure to improvement your social media reach and skyrocket your engagement.

]]>U.S workers spend an average of 6.3 hours a day checking email and forty-five percent of eighteen to thirty-year-olds open emails as a soon as they wake up. Email is not going away anytime soon, despite it being one of the oldest internet technologies.

Although it’s an incredibly efficient way to communicate it can also be a real productivity killer. The demands of the inbox often distract us from more important tasks. Often this is due to the perceived need for a lighting-fast response time. In fact, studies have shown that more than 80% of people expect a response from coworkers within four hours.

When Gmail launched in 2004, it quickly rose to prominence overtaking the likes of Yahoo and Hotmail in a matter of months. Ten years on, it has over 1 billion monthly active users and is the gold standard of email software.

One of it’s most under-utilised features are the extensive range of plugins available that make Gmail even more compelling and help dramatically with productivity.

In this article, we look at six Gmail plugins that help increase your email productivity.

1.GMass

GMass is a powerful mail merge and follow-up email service. If you have ever found yourself needing to send emails to dozens (or hundreds) of people at once, then this tool cannot be overlooked. It can connect to Google Sheets and pull in your list data on-the-fly. GMass also lets you personalize the email with multiple merge fields and allows you to schedule on mass over a period of days.

2. Rebump

Rebump is an awesome tool that sends friendly follow-up messages to your email recipients for you. The automated emails are customized to appear as if you sent the email yourself. The follow-up messages only get sent if the recipient does not reply. Often emails get lost in the herd and a simple follow up email ‘rebumps’ you message to the top of the inbox. Rebump Customers (including myself) report an average 30% increased response rate.

3. Streak

Streak is a CRM, inside Gmail. It lets you create a stage-flow system that is easy setup and organized. For example, when a ‘lead’ becomes a ‘prospect’ Streak will move the email/customer further down the funnel. It has a wonderfully simple design that gives you a coherent overview of all of your contacts and shows where they are in the sales flow. It is entirely customizable allowing you to enter relevant data for each contact. Streak also works collaboratively so you can quickly share your CRM data with your team.

4. Unroll.me

Unroll.me is a free service that shows you a list of all of your subscription emails allowing you to unsubscribe from whatever you don’t want. After unsubscribing from what you don’t want, you can combine what you love into a beautiful digest called the Rollup.

5. Grammarly

Grammarly is a neat service that makes sure everything you type is easy to ready, effective, and mistake-free. It instantly fixes over 250 types of errors and finds the perfect word every time with context-optimized synonym suggestions. Grammarly works wherever you write including Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, nearly anywhere else you write on the web.

6. Drag

Drag is a task and project management tool that lives inside of Gmail. Drag organizes your work visually giving you a kanban view with cards to easily see the big picture.